So much businessto take care of. Before I could leave for work
this morning I had to call in and confirm our flight reservations
for the Christmas to New Years stretch in New York, which I've
taken to thinking of lately as Newyork. My brother Peter
will be home from the Philippines, the youngest but the first
engaged, and my sister Jennifer will be up from D.C. My brother
Arthur, who lives in Newyork (or, rather, Williamsburgbrooklyn),
will be gallivanting about New Orleans with the family of his
longtime companion, Sara. Meanwhile, B and I will be staying at a
pension in the Village, as I can't sleepover at my folks'
apartment in the east 90s now that they have two cats (to which my mother
is herself allergic).

And that's not even the type of
business I was really thinking of. I meant real bidness business,
such as it is in the life of a free-lance writer. In my case, it's
a dreadfully overdue chapter on my
BeOS
book and a revision
proposal for the third edition of my thus-far bestselling
Internet how-to book. Maintaining this new journal as well
as the ongoing
Daily Barbie
may have injected a huge dose
of discipline into my workday, into the rhythm of my work,
but it has not exactly freed up any time for my bread-and-butter
work. And still those personal responsibilities seem always
to pile up. I'm supposed to be buying a new car (but first
securing insurance and a loan), since B's
old '82 Datsun finally blew its last gasket. We ate it
last night. An intimate dinner at my favorite restaurant,
BayWolf, just B and our friends Dick and Nick. B paid her
share out of the cash settlement for towing away the car.
This same car, I am relieved in an odd sense, was partly
immortalized in a painting of mine (a diptych) hanging over
our stereo near the front door, End Construction.

x

Nick is not onlyfriend, confidant, and fellow-music-seeker.
He has also volunteered for the possibly thankless job
or role of my "amanuensis" for the midwifery of this
novel. He feels that I have helped encourage and develop
his writing and he wants to reciprocate. I spew words out
left and right, mostly in e-mail, sometimes in notebooks,
occasionally with a clear connection to the fiction
project, sometimes not. What I seem to need is someone
to gather the strewn writings, square away the piles, tidy
up the order a little bit, and then show it back to me:
"See, see what you've been up to?"

I don't always see.
It seems I can only grasp a tiny corner of the saga
at a time. I've started over so many times and
developed so many variations on a story line that
I'm not really sure how or whether or if the parts
relate to each other. Then again, the previous sentence
was written by that ultra-rational doubting part of my
self that always has endless good reasons why I should
hesitate before proceeding. The truth is, I have so
much to tell, so many tight little sentences to flesh
out into paragraphs, paragraphs into sections,
sections into chapters, chapter into whole. I know what
I have to do. It's the same answer every time: write.